As We Go Along
by Stripesicles222
Summary: "That's just it," she said. "It's that fight or flight mentality that separates the people of courage from the cowards. What separates you from me." When you and everyone else has told you one thing for so long, how can you change that vision of yourself? Maybe, it just takes a new perspective of someone who is willing to care. (Rated T for themes)


**As We Go Along  
**_Stripesicles222_

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Blake sighed and turned away from the window. As much as she usually loved watching the rain, she just wasn't feeling it today. She glanced at the book in her lap, and resisted the urge to throw it across the room. She opted instead to set it down in the desk next to her and roll over to face the wall. It wasn't the book's fault she was in such a sour mood.

She wanted little more than to let the bed swallow her up and drown the voices in her head. The voices that kept echoing everything she told herself. These voices weren't overly loud, but they were persistent, willing themselves to be heard.

And she hated that she listened.

She rolled over again to glance at the clock. Ruby and Weiss would be back soon, and as much she was starting to love them, she just couldn't be around them at the moment.

Standing up, she pulled on her shoes and slipped out the door. As she made it around the corner, her ears picked up the voices of her two teammates entering the hall behind her. It seemed she had just made it.

Not caring where she went, only wanting to be alone, she aimlessly found her way out to the courtyard. She folded her ears down against the rain and scowled at the dark sky before dashing towards the nearest tree for cover.

Grabbing a lower branch, she hoisted herself up into the boughs, making her way to a spot hidden from rain and from view.

The rain pattering around did little to ease the voices in her head. If anything, they just intensified.

She curled up as best she could on the branch and clamped her hands over her ears. "Shut up," she pleaded. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

But they either didn't hear her, or didn't care.

She felt a few tears slide loose, but did nothing to stop them. The salty droplets join the rain on its torrential fall down to the ground.

Her attention was then grabbed by flash of yellow in the sea of gray beyond her hidey hole. She heard a laugh echo out in a tone so very unlike the ones bouncing around in her head.

"Go away, Yang," she whispered to the wind. "Please don't come any closer."

But the wind didn't care for her desires of solitude. A heftier gust blew through the area causing the tree's branches to creak in protest. By the curse of the gods, the blonde happened to glance up at just the right angle to catch sight of the girl hiding among the shadows of the leaves. Her grin brightened upon spotting her and she altered her direction to the tree.

But when she got close enough to notice the faunus' anxious posture and haunted gaze, she slowed, and her face became one of cautious concern.

Rather than call up to her, Yang clambered up the tree and settled on a branch that was a bit to the side of Blake's. Not close enough to be stifling, yet not too far that Bake could totally ignore her presence.

She didn't say anything; she just sat there and waited.

Blake shifted herself so she was facing away from her partner. All she wanted was to be left alone.

The wind continued to whistle around them, and after a few minutes, Blake caved.

"What are you doing here, Yang?" She asked resignedly.

"Am I not allowed to spend time with my partner?"

The blonde's tone was light and airy, but there was an undercurrent of something else too. But Blake just huffed and pulled her legs up to her chest.

"You don't want me as your partner," she muttered. "You deserve someone better."

When there was no immediate verbal response, she strained her ears to try and catch the sound of her retreat. But she could only hear the weather.

At least the voices in her head were quieter.

"You're wrong." The resoluteness in Yang's caught her by surprise. "I do want you as a partner."

Blake twisted around to look at her, momentarily taken aback.

"But why?" She asked. "I'm nothing but a terrified child. A 'scaredy-cat'!"

She spat the last phrase with disgust and disdain, echoing the voices as they surged back in full force.

Yang reached out to her, but stopped halfway, resting her hand on the tree branch again instead.

"Everyone gets scared sometimes, Blake," she said. "It's that fight or flight reaction that we all have. It's just a natural part of life."

"That's just it," Blake averred. "It's that fight or flight mentality that separates the people of courage from the cowards. What separates you from me."

She tensed up and clung to herself, pointedly looking away from the blonde again. She had said too much. She couldn't bring herself to even glance at Yang, too nervous to catch a glimpse of her surely accusatory expression.

But Yang didn't' ridicule or berate her. No words of condemnation spilled from her lips. She simply asked for elaboration.

"What do you mean?"

Blake curled imperceptibly closer into herself, shrinking sideways into the tree as best she could. She felt Yang's patient gaze on her back, and it drove her to madness. It became too much to bear, and she spoke up just to end the torturous silence.

"When you get scared, you use your fists," she began. "You can fight your way through any problem you face and don't let it hold you back."

She paused, letting the truth she was about to spill settle in on her mind, accepting it for what it was. And then her tone shifted towards angry affirmation, as if she were condemning herself, because Yang wouldn't.

"But me? I pick the second option. I pick flight. Every single time, without fail, I turn around and flee! I always have, and probably always will!"

This time, Yang reached all the way and rested her hand on Blake's shoulder. She jumped at the sudden warmth.

"I'm sure that's not the case."

Blake scoffed.

"But it is!" She jerked away from Yang's touch and spun to face her. If it weren't for her impeccable balance, she was sure she would have fallen from their perch. Once she had reoriented herself, she looked away from Yang again and stared out into the storm.

"I always thought I was fighting for what was right," she confessed. "But even then I hid behind a mask. When I saw who Adam had become—who I was becoming—I got scared and ran. When you all found out I was a faunus, I ran. I run form my failures, my feelings, and the voices screaming in my head. I even ran from Ruby and Weiss again today."

She clenched her hands into fists and buried her face back into her knees. She was a coward who couldn't even face the ones that she knew wouldn't hurt her.

The voices were right. She didn't deserve them. They deserved better than her.

"Well…" Yang said. "You're not running from me."

Blake opened her mouth to refute that, but found she couldn't. Throughout the course of the conversation, Yang had never once tried to trap her in. She had granted Blake every chance to get away, but she hadn't taken any of them.

But one instance doesn't overwrite a lifetime of cowardice.

"What point are you trying to make, Yang?"

Yang shrugged, but turned to look at her straight on.

"I'm just sayin', maybe instead of running _away_ from everything, maybe you could have something to run _towards_."

Blake scrutinized her, trying to figure out where this was headed.

"What should I run to?"

Yang grinned at her. "How about me?"

Blake just looked at her for a second. Out of everything the blonde could have possibly said, this was undoubtedly the least expected.

Despite her practiced poker face, Yang must have caught on to her uncertainty, and thus continued with an explanation.

"Just hear me out," she said. "When you take off, you try to find somewhere secluded to try to sort through things, right?"

Blake's ears flattened again as she tried to deny it, but the fact that they were twenty some feet above the ground in tree during a thunderstorm would have contradicted that.

"Wouldn't you rather have a friend?" Yang asked." "You can tell me as much or as little as you'd like. I'll even just sit there in silence if that's what you need,"

Blake dropped her head to hide her small smile. Despite her misgivings about this unwelcome plan, she couldn't help but feel touched. She could tell how sincere her partner was being, even though she knew the blonde hated sitting still and quietly.

"So please, Blake…"

Her pleading tone caused the faunus to look up, where she became entrapped by a flooding of emotions in the lavender eyes.

"…Don't isolate yourself anymore."

Blake opened her mouth to reply, but she found she couldn't speak. That was a promise she couldn't make.

But as she looked at the blonde sitting out in the rain with her, Blake realized something about herself that she found rather curious.

Sometime during their conversation, she had become less tense. Not much, but enough that her insides weren't quite as coiled and her ears weren't cramped against her head. And the voices, while still there, weren't as insistent and forceful, giving her a chance to think a bit more freely.

For the first time in a long time, she was finally able to put a name to that elusive feeling that Yang's presence would cause. She exuded a sense of safety and security. She could be a place of refuge where Blake could hide from the cruelties of the world.

"Are you sure your willing to do this?" she asks eventually. She couldn't imagine anyone would be willing to put forth the energy and time to do something like this. Especially not for her.

"Of course I am!" Yang gave one of her encouraging grins. "Whatever you need, I'll be there. Even if you just need a sparring partner to beat up and blow off steam."

Blake didn't bother to hide her smile this time. Whether it was a result of her partner's exuberance, or the realization that she sincerely cared, she didn't know.

"I think I'd like that," she decided. She couldn't help but widen her smile as Yang beamed at her.

The blonde opened her arms in an offered hug. After a mere moment's hesitation, Blake leaned into the embrace with an exaggerated eye-roll.

Unfortunately, Yang's excitement was rather over the top and she leaned a little bit too far backwards. The next thing Blake knew, she found herself tumbling through the air still trapped in her partner's bear hug.

Although their auras shielded them from any serious damage and injuries, it did not, unfortunately, have any such protection against the mud that now caked their bodies. Regardless of the fact that she had already been drenched prior to their ungraceful descent, Blake leveled a glare at her teammate anyway.

Yang chuckled nervously in response, but that soon bubbled into a whole-hearted laugh, joyous enough that Blake couldn't help but join in.

Even once they had regained their composure, Blake maintained her smile. It may have been small compared to Yang's own, but it was still there.

"Thank you, Yang," she said softly.

The blonde stood up and offered Blake a broad smile and a hand up.

"How about we head in to dry off?" she offered,

Blake took the proffered hand and pulled herself up. Without need for a verbal response, the pair started the trek back to the dorms.

Blake recalled once hearing someone always say talking about your problems is the only way to get anywhere in solving them. But it seemed that sometimes, all you need is companionship and the patient support of a friend.

Yang was far from a patient person when it came to most things, but Blake was ever so grateful for her stubbornness and willingness.

True, things weren't all that much better than they had been earlier. She was still very much overwhelmed, and the voices of self-deprecation and insecurities were still calling out, reminding her of her unworthiness and cowardice.

But she no longer felt so abandoned. She had this hope that someday things might be okay again. More than anything else though, she felt supported.

With Yang, there was never any pressure or oppressive attempts to fix her. Nor was there any placating falsehood that everything in life was grand and running smoothly when it was obvious it wasn't.

The realness, paired with Yang's patient smiles and her lack of attempts at controlling the conversations was enough to make Blake think she might someday be able to open and fully be able to open up to her someday, even if that someday was years away.

She found that thought wasn't as scary as she remembered it being.

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**A/N: Inspired by the Monkees' song by the same title, and by a few interactions with others I've had over the past handful of months.**


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